Collin LaHay has been trading the inefficiencies of the crypto markets full-time for the last few years. He developed and manages his own blockchain project,GambitCrypto, since 2015 and leads a private trading group, who develop their own proprietary trading algorithms, bots and tools. Collin is the #1 ranked escrow trust-agent for cryptocurrency trades on Bitrated. LaHay also recently became aPinkcoin advisor. We sat down with him to ask a few questions about his life and what drives his passion for blockchain projects.

1) Tell us a little bit about your own background.

Before crypto, I got my degree in Business Administration & Marketing at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. I had been doing Internet marketing for 10 or 11 years and was self-taught in finance, which is how I started playing around with trading. What started out as a hobby in early 2013 turned into a new career when in December 2014 I resigned my Fortune 500 marketing gigs to go full-time into crypto. I realize that most marketing people stay in marketing, but because I was on the data analytics side of things, the transition wasn’t so dramatic. I basically went to school for one thing, then discovered I had a passion for something else.

2) How did you learn about Pinkcoin?

I learned about them back in 2014 when Pinkcoin was being used as a utility to enter poker tournaments. That’s how I met Danny and the rest of the team. Danny was big in the World Series of Poker at the time. Our relationship started out casual. But later we ended up working on development projects. It was all very unexpected. There was this fun poker phase and then there was this serious development phase.

3) What do you think the biggest challenge is for anyone doing social impact via blockchain?

I have seen a lot of social impact coins trying to be developed. And it all comes back to the same issue: just getting users to be recurring donators. You can have a successful ICO or token drive, only to see everything fizzle out after the launch. The hard part is sustaining that interest and momentum and growing and getting new users and branding properly and getting people to contribute on a regular basis.

4) Where do you see things going in the next few years in terms of the industry and its relation to social impact?

We are going to see different variations on how people are going to use tokens to fund their causes. There are use-cases we haven’t even thought of yet. For the moment, Pinkcoin is one of the leading projects that his defining this new space, while the majority are focused on the profit-making end of things.

5) Are people in the industry aware of the negative public perception of cryptocurrency or are they in their own bubble?

That’s a tough question. As the market matures, there will be more regulations and these regulations will reduce the number of bad actors and thereby improve public perception. At the moment, the large financial upside is fostering a bubble mentality. I think the industry is also waiting for a use-case that shows how blockchain can be used to advocate for a social cause, as well as be financially advantageous.